Dutch slewed round his head and looked at Hugh. Neither of them spoke a word. The killer was not drunk. He was in that depressed state of mind which follows heavy drinking after the stimulus has died down. One glance was enough to make clear to him his carelessness. By the crook of a finger his foe could fill him full of buckshot. The ticking of a clock behind the bar was the only sound in the room. The gun-fighters with Dutch dared not rise to slip out of the line of fire for fear McClintock might misunderstand the movement and blaze away. Hugh broke the silence. “If any of you gentlemen have business elsewhere Mr. Dutch and I will excuse you.” All of them, it appeared, had matters needing their attention. They moved swiftly and without delay. Dutch begged for his life. His ugly face was a yellowish-green from fear. “I was jes’ a-foolin’, young fellow. I didn’t aim to hurt you none. Only a li’l’ joke. Ole Sam don’t bear no grudge. Le’s be friends.” The man with the shotgun said nothing. With the tip of his forefinger he tapped slowly three times on the wooden top of the table. The bad man gave a low moan of terror. He had no thought but that he had come to the end of the passage. His brain was too paralyzed to permit him to try to draw his revolver. Nemesis was facing him. “Hands on the table,” ordered Hugh. The big hands trembled up and fell there. Abjectly Dutch pleaded for the mercy he had never given another man. He would leave camp. He would go to Mexico. He would quit carrying a gun. Any terms demanded he would meet. Hugh sat in a corner with his back to the wall. He was protected by his position from any attack except a frontal one, in case the companions of Dutch moved to come to his rescue. They had, in point of fact, no such intention. Though Dutch belonged to their gang, he had always been an obnoxious bully. He was a quarrelsome, venomous fellow, and more than once had knifed or shot those of his own crowd. Nobody liked him, least of all those who had accepted him as leader. Three-Fingered Jack leaned back with his elbows hitched on the bar and grinned cynically as he listened to the whining of the huge ruffian. “He claims to be a man-eater, Sam does,” he whispered to Daily. “Calls himself Chief of Main Street. Fine. We’ll let him play his own hand. He sure wouldn’t want us interferin’ against a kid. All night I’ve listened to his brags about what all he’d do to this McClintock guy. Now I’m waitin’ to see him do it.” “What’s eatin’ the kid?” demanded Daily, also in a whisper. “Why don’t he plug loose with the fireworks? You can’t monkey with Sam. First thing he knows he won’t know a thing, that kid won’t. He’ll be a sure enough corpus delinqui.”